Emotional abuse and humiliation are forms of workplace bullying and harassment and are found in nearly all countries. No site including cyberspace is immune from the unwanted aggressive behaviour; observed or perceived power imbalance. These distress signals often seen as the ‘feminist concerns’ are undeniable in Pakistan as well.
Direct and indirect bullying with verbal, physical, relational and property damages are found not only in children’s’ schools or colleges but also at the modern workplaces where, legally adults with promising potentials and impressive CVs work in responsible positions. The preponderance of this gender based violence is high even in mechanised countries like US, UK, etc. Some bullying actions can fall into criminal categories, such as harassment, hazing, or assault. Bullying in comparison to harassment is even more difficult to establish and criminalise.
Pakistan has an anti-harassment law; The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010, that functions in a weak system and does not robotically make harassment against women or other people an easy case to win. However, it reflects good judgment of the State and the sagacity of its civil society. There are three Ombudspersons, one in the federal area and one each in Punjab and Sindh to process appeals and even direct cases of sexual harassment under the law. Each province has a Provincial Implementation Watch Committee, facilitating and monitoring compliance in their respective provinces.
According to rights activist Maliha Hussain of Mehargarh, the law in Pakistan is being implemented in all sectors in an organised manner, but a lot more work needs to be done on it. The number of cases in the last seven years in which Mehergarh was directly involved is over 3700, where only six reported cases were with mala fide intention and about 8 that were not managed properly, meaning that 99.63 per cent of cases were handled in a very responsible manner. The harassers involved, were either punished or both parties compromised. Significantly, 3 of them were reported by men, one against another man and two against women.
There is no magical recipe for positive, pro-women, disadvantaged-oriented, equality-centred transformative change. No policy, programme and project will be victorious without the buy-in and support of the majority (who are men) in any organisation
A number of organisations claiming to be progressive also let bullying and harassment go unnoticed. Having worked for over two decades directly with the destitute and the dominant notables, both, I can safely and responsibly, state that hounding occurs in nearly all organisations. Exceptions aside, a vast majority, especially women (even the aware and educated ones) do not have the social power to disclose any incident of overt and covert maltreatment at work place. The number of unreported cases is always much higher than the actual incidence. The outcomes of the reported cases are also not always very optimistic. Rarely any organisation seeks to reckon why there is no case reporting, whether all employees are working in a fear-free environment or not and how to report a case against the top bass or those who are politically and socially well connected? The victims especially women in such situations face multi-faceted trauma, due to the loss of livelihood, credibility, self esteem, the fear or fact of being distrusted and maligned and the compulsion of hiding.
The prudence, of many creditable humans, disintegrates, in many deceptively decent work settings. The abusive social power assorted with the moral break down on the other side ultimately becomes unacceptable, perilous and very often lead to their decision to exit. The health experts urge that if one feels like ones corporation turns blind eyes to or backs bullying and or harassment, the best option just might be to quit.
The resolute and valiant activists around the globe are campaigning that it is worth thinking what bullying and harassment are, how these work in the workplaces and what the unlawful and unethical male entitlements are, so women can understand how to protect themselves. It is imperative for all, especially women who work in formal structures to contemplate on these issues and never get contented that such accidents happen in the reports of foreign-funded projects or with “bad women/people”.
The loss of collective morality, culture of violence, greed and flattery and subservience to the powerful, the personal interests of those in the decision making corridors and an attitude to prefer personal networks over merit, very often impede things. Therefore, the gap between de jure and de facto constitute the deplorable and scary reality spectrum.
There is no magical recipe for positive, pro-women, disadvantaged-oriented, equality-centered transformative change. No policy, program and project will be victorious without the buy-in and support of the majority (who are men), in any organisation.
Some fundamental questions in our context could be; what are the hindrances in the advancement of gender mainstreaming in our society? Who is responsible for cultivating a gender receptive and responsive work culture in the work places? Why Pakistan in spite of its well-articulated constitution and Islamic identity that underscores human equality, dignity of work and privileges for women could not create a trust in the public spaces and work places for women? These presumably byzantine inquiries call for meticulous soul searching.
The writer, a gender expert, researcher, author, activist, free thinker is also a victim turned survivor who could never report the harassments she faced at work places. She can be reached at [email protected]